Session managing in JSF

[Adrian Bustos]

Hi Everyone, this is my first post.

I found myself in a pickle regarding session managing in JSF.

For the sake of argument let's say I've a bean that returns the server'current time

public class BackingBean {
	public String getCurrentTime();
}

Then there's a page that invokes this method every seccond

	<h:form>
		<a4j:poll interval="1000" reRender="a4jpnlCurrentTime"/>
		
		<a4j:outputPanel id="a4jpnlCurrentTime">
			<h:outputText value="Time: #{backingBean.currentTime}" />
		</a4j:outputPanel>
	</h:form>

This works great, but every time this method is invoked the session's lastAccessedTime property is updated.
I need to void this to happend, but only for this specific method invokation.

How can I make that possible?

web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
	id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5">
	<display-name>hydra-test</display-name>
	<welcome-file-list>
		<welcome-file>index.html</welcome-file>
		<welcome-file>index.htm</welcome-file>
		<welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
		<welcome-file>default.html</welcome-file>
		<welcome-file>default.htm</welcome-file>
		<welcome-file>default.jsp</welcome-file>
	</welcome-file-list>



	<context-param>
		<param-name>facelets.DEVELOPMENT</param-name>
		<param-value>true</param-value>
	</context-param>
	<context-param>
		<param-name>javax.faces.DEFAULT_SUFFIX</param-name>
		<param-value>.xhtml</param-value>
	</context-param>
	<context-param>
		<param-name>javax.faces.CONFIG_FILES</param-name>
		<param-value>/WEB-INF/faces-config.xml</param-value>
	</context-param>

	<servlet>
		<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
		<servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
		<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
	</servlet>
	<servlet-mapping>
		<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
		<url-pattern>*.jsf</url-pattern>
	</servlet-mapping>


	<filter>
		<display-name>RichFaces Filter</display-name>
		<filter-name>richfaces</filter-name>
		<filter-class>org.ajax4jsf.Filter</filter-class>
	</filter>

	<filter-mapping>
		<filter-name>richfaces</filter-name>
		<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
		<dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
		<dispatcher>FORWARD</dispatcher>
		<dispatcher>INCLUDE</dispatcher>
	</filter-mapping>


	<session-config>
		<session-timeout>1</session-timeout>
	</session-config>
</web-app>

faces-config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<faces-config version="1.2" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
	xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_1_2.xsd">

	<managed-bean>
		<managed-bean-name>backingBean</managed-bean-name>
		<managed-bean-class>com.mypackage.BackingBean</managed-bean-class>
		<managed-bean-scope>request</managed-bean-scope>
	</managed-bean>
</faces-config>

Thanks in advance!

[Tim Holloway]

The session timeout counter is automatically maintained by the application server and cannot be modified by application code.

However, if you want to post an AJAX-refreshed display element and still timeout when no useful work has been done, you can always maintain your own countdown timer in the AJAX action processor. When your timer drops to zero, manually log out the user.

You may want to install a servlet filter or phase listener to reset your counter when legitimate page requests are received so that each page doesn't require its own manual counter reset logic.